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Sketchcrawler

It was the 20th Sketchcrawl on Saturday, and as I had been wanting to do one and the Brisbane group plans fell through, I took myself sketchcrawling around West End, starting at the markets (the best in Brisbane – and the best cupcakes: pretty and tasty). For going it alone, it is surprising how many people I talked to. Sketching can be a great way to meet people.

As usual, if you want to see more detail, click on the picture to go to its Flickr page, and then click on “all sizes” above the picture.

The left page is Latin dancing in Brisbane square on Friday night – I liked the idea of the semi-silhouette of the woman in the coat, and used that again in the sketchcrawl. On the right, the sketchcrawl begins with a lemon sorbet cupcake and behind the scenes at The Cupcake Parlour’s stall.

Here is a patient dog, and remarkably well-behaved given how close he was to cupcakes (the pink tablecloth on the right is the bottom of that stall) and two guitarrists, as well as a selection of headgear. At this point a lady shared my table and we chatted for a while about guitar and art and she invited me to her Bible study. I also had some lillipilli sorbet, but didn’t draw that.

I think this is Davies Park, West End. It might just be an overgrown piece of verge – it’s sort of hard to tell, but it does join up to the playing fields and one corner of the markets. In retrospect, I like how the tree turned out, but at the time I was disappointed not to be able to capture all the gnarls and folds and curves. The thumbnail below it is of shoes hanging from phone lines in front of a jacaranda – only they turned out to be slingback heels and not sneakers as is more often the case. Then I visited Reverse Garbage (love that shop with its bins of “shiny silver stuff”, “small felt moons”, “perspex shapes” and strange and wondrous industrial offcuts). I saw a man carrying groceries home on his skateboard, then walked down to the vicinity of the Three Monkeys cafe and caught some father christmas on the way, but I am out of practice at making memorable wishes.

At Gra Beeka cafe, I had some sticky sweet biscuits (but the buttery grabieh were my favourite) and ended up talking to some Canadians studying medicine at UQ, and sharing the brand of markers with one of them who decided to go buy a moleskine sketchbook. Then I had a late lunch at Three Monkeys with the girls from the house at Toowong (yes, I spent most of the day eating, that was partly the point), walked them to their shoe sale, drew young magpies who were pulling garage sale signs off a brick wall and wound up at The Music Kafe and listened to Sarah Haigh playing (triple-j unearthed – hehe, just found out she’s a lawyer too). I hadn’t heard her before, but really like her style and am looking forward to the new CD she said is coming out soon.

Here are the semi-silhouettes again, people leaning in the open window to listen. I quite like that picture. Then evidence of me drinking alone. Sarah Haigh very kindly signed my book and gave me a copy of her EP and didn’t point out that I had left a letter off her name. Also, there is a robot pencil sharpener I bought at Avid Reader.

You can see other results of the sketchcrawl from around the world on the forums.